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WHY I CARE: FOR HINCHCLIFFE, GIVING BACK IS PERSONAL

Posted April 20, 2016

James Hinchcliffe kicked himself over the 2015 crash at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that kept him out of most of last season, but not for the reason some might think.

The No. 5 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda driver was angry with himself because it took the 22 units of blood pumped into his body after the crash for him to realize the importance of encouraging others to give it.

“It’s one of those things where I am really annoyed at myself – it took something like what happened to me for me to understand the problem,” Hinchcliffe said of the incident last May 18 when a suspension failure on his car sent him into the Turn 3 wall and a suspension piece pierced an artery in his thigh.

“You have to try and see the silver lining in these things and for me it was learning about the need for blood and how scarily short supplies sometimes are,” Hinchcliffe continued. “I don’t want other people to have to go through something like I went through to come to the same conclusion. I’ve worked with the Red Cross already and I will do anything I can do to raise awareness about the issue and try to draw people into donating blood.”